The agreement concluded by Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Henrik de Kauffmann, the Danish Minister, placing Greenland unde the protection of the United States for the duration of the war as a European colony that ould not be transferred to another European country has seemingly disposed of the question of whether Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere but it has not cleared up the question of just what that hemisphere is, states the New York "Times." President Roosevelt authorized the agreement on the grounds that Greenland definitely belonged to Denmark by process of colonization and that the island lay within the Western Hemisphere, so that its transfer to another European power would be contrary to the Monroe Doctrine. 3 But Greenland has not always been considered part of this hemisphere; views have varied according to the angle of approach to the question. In fact, the term Western Hemisphere, unlike the term Italy before unification of that country, is scarcely even a geographical expression. Moreover, according to State Department experts, it has no international recognition as a defined area. It comes down ye! much to the question of what the United States and the other American nations decide that it is and their ability through armed strength to enforce their definition. In these circumstances the term is necessarily elastic.
The question of what constitutes the Western Hemisphere depends in its simplest form on whether the definition is to be geographical or political. The State Deparment is willing to offer suggestions of a geographical nature. It shies away from a political definition because that can turn on problems of the moment or of the future, the desires of the United States and the other American nations, and the power and disposition of non-American countries to challenge the American concept.
Geographers have found it convenient to consider that the Western Hemisphere extends from 20 degrees W. to 160 degrees E. longitude. This includes the two American continents and appertaining islands, most of Greenland, part of Iceland, the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, New Zealand and the eastern part of Manitestly, political scientists do not conceive this as the Western Hemisphere, while the Monroe Doctrine, when first proclaimed, seemed to cover a much more limited area
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.